The line between helping out and interfering is wafer-thin when you become a grandparent, writes MARY LELAND
IT IS true of all grandmothers that nothing prepares us for this role. Least of all being a mother oneself. Motherhood may be the essential prelude to grandmotherhood, but it is not a trial run.
There are three layers in the new relationship: the grandparent, the parents and the grandchildren. While the most engaging and emotionally satisfying interaction may be between the grandparent and the grandchildren, the most instructive connection is with the parents, whose unity one must support and whose methods one must obey.
This prerequisite produces a condition both universal and unique, particularly if one’s own offspring have been late bloomers so far as multiplication is concerned. That means that while they are intimately in tune with the parenting times, we are not.
Take sugar, for example. Or rather, don’t take it at all. It’s nearly worse than cigarettes. It has no place in the infant or toddler comfort menu where a nice slice of courgette is more likely to be offered than a Smartie.
Equally, the colour, smell and texture of nappy contents may be of such absorbing interest that they are discussed at the dinner table, but the more squeamish among us might prefer not to mention them at all. So we won’t mention them.
And don’t mention God either. This is a very tricky issue especially if as a visitor you have to sneak out of the house at the first tinge of dawn to catch an early mass or service. Jesus can be allowed when seasonally appropriate, like strawberries; he’s okay up to the marriage feast at Cana – also appropriate enough – but while Christmas permits some guarded references, avoid Easter at all costs. Believe me, that crucifixion is not an easy bed-time story subject.
And even if your delightful grandchildren find something of a Roald Dahl-like charm in his occasional filial intransigence – staying behind in the temple, for example, or in that little boy who found his lunch-box surprisingly full of loaves and fish – it’s better to suppress the story of those youngsters revived in the nick of time until the grandchildren are older, by which time they will have lost interest anyway.
In the choice between interfering and intervening there is actually no choice at all. Do neither. Keep out of the way until wanted (which is not the same as being needed, a state which may be perfectly clear to you but which is not always obvious to others). Declare your availability and stay buggy-fit at all times and at all costs. Little accidents will happen – a stubbed toe, a forgotten nappy change, the wrong leggings. Don’t fuss too much, they’ll fuss enough for an army. And even if it was your fault, don’t emphasise that by rending your garments as they rend the air. Stay calm and remember that you can always cut them out of the will.
Do not make suggestions, wondering “if it might be a good idea?”. It might indeed be a good idea, it almost certainly is a good idea, but it is a much better idea not to say so. Don’t offer advice whatever the temptation. It’s best to let them follow the advice your own mother gave you: “Wait till you’re asked”. And also, of course, to let them find out in their own time, just as you did in yours, how wise their mother really is, after all. That’s a late realisation but as you know it does happen in the end.
When they come to you, the situation is more or less reversed: more in that you can be more affirmative, less in that affirmation is not the same as control.
There will be well-meant inquiries about that little crack over the window in the kitchen or the significance of that creaking stair. There may be an offer to do some pruning work in the garden, so that the adults can walk down the path without drawing blood; accept this, even if it means a week’s subsequent efforts to get rid of the prunings left behind.
These, including the persistent rattle of the washing machine and the absolutely precise, deeply researched and eventually Argos-sourced travel cot, are temporary visitations. They can be smiled away so that you can concentrate on the matter in hand: enjoyment, on your own terms.
When it comes to giving, apart from the giving of what they want of yourself, there are two maxims to be observed: the Jewish belief in “giving with a warm hand” – in other words, while still alive – and the old reminder that to give immediately is to give twice.
Acceptance is integral to the role of the grandparent; accepting that the strains of Sinead O’Connor might be the bedtime music replacing Mozart; accepting that no one is as likely as you are to explain the grammatical difference between the elder and the eldest, the younger and the youngest or the proper use of might and may.
Acceptance of all the love you can get, all the love you can give. Acceptance, above all, of the single crucial factor of grandparenthood: for late bloomers, it’s a temporary engagement. You won’t be around to see how it all turns out.
